“The book has somehow to be adapted to the body, and at a venture one would say that women’s books should be shorter, more concentrated, than those of men, and framed so that they do not need long hours of steady and uninterrupted work. For interruptions there will always be.” (A room of one’s own by Virginia Woolf, Penguin Classics, p.78)

A room of one’s own came out in 1928, but the phrase “interruptions there will always be” rings truer today than ever. For me, typical interruptions range from small (emailing, phone calls, food...) to much larger (the need to earn a living by writing for other people). So, what form of writing suits our interrupted lives today, I wonder?

From books to blogsIf you are willing to read on, let me trace the evolution of my thinking about bookwriting versus blogging. Back in 2010, at the end of a long, intense period of book writing, I said to myself I would not embark on another book for some time. Despite this, after the book came out in 2011, the feeling of wanting to publish another one refused to go away.

The trouble was, I simply could not (or was unwilling to) make the time to write a whole book in one go. In 2013, I at least managed to write and publish one substantial article. This was satisfying but seemed rather a small achievement over a whole year. I had intended to continue writing other pieces over the supposedly quiet summer months, but I was constantly (and pleasantly) interrupted by visitors, gardening and client work. With the benefit of hindsight I now realise that getting one thorough article out in a 12-month period isn’t bad going.

Since then I have been rethinking what form of writing best suits life today. I can’t simply declare myself a full-time book author, as I need to continue earning my living. However, I do usually manage to keep one day a week – Friday – free for my own writing and publishing. But even that gets eroded by the usual interruptions.

Given all these difficulties, I am wondering if (though some people I know are dismissive of it) blogging could be the right form for me for the time being. It has two kinds of advantage for the writer: first, ease of writing and publishing; and second, the potential for numerous short pieces to accumulate into a decent body of work – that elusive book – on a chosen subject.

The ease of writing stems from the fact that a blog post is something I can draft in a morning. I might then sit on it for a while before coming back to review and edit it, but the form fits my time constraints perfectly. Also, since I am writing for public consumption, I feel inclined to craft the pieces carefully. I can also modify, expand or withdraw them whenever I want.

The inspiration for each of my posts comes from noticing what strikes me in my daily reading and conversations. I then reflect on it by writing, drawing on my deeper knowledge of the role of writing in society, so that each post has some depth and is not just a superficial piece of journalism or self-promotion. Sometimes I use a method called “dreamwriting” to get a very rough draft written quickly. This involves taking pen and paper, and spending 10, 20 or 30 minutes hand-writing whatever comes to mind about a chosen topic. In my experience, this can create spontaneous, readable writing; and when writing in a flow without stopping to edit, unexpected insights often emerge.

What’s more, blogging and dreamwriting enable me to write about a subject I feel I almost know too well. Because I wrote a whole thesis on this topic – the role of writing in society – sometimes I feel almost paralysed when I try to write about it now. I can’t just toss out some casual observations without thinking of all the relevant context, history and scholarship. So paradoxically I find it easier to write shorter pieces. I suppose this is not very different to what many have done in the past, namely to use previously published articles, talks and essays and compile them into a book.

The beauty of accumulating shorter pieces is that there is no need for a big plan; instead, one’s thinking can evolve naturally over time until the pieces come together into a bigger picture. To this end, a blog allows one to assign “categories” to each post, and each category automatically appears in a list on the right hand side of the page. This list grows with time, providing a flavour of the themes emerging and how these might be combined into a larger publication.

I was astonished to notice today that, with only 12 posts and about 20 categories on my blog, I can already glimpse the book that is emerging. This is a great relief, as I had been beginning to feel that time was running out – I want to publish that book before I get old…

Epilogue: internet revolution - help or hindrance?As I was writing this, I kept asking myself, how are we being changed by all the new technologies – web, email, apps, and so on? So I reached out for John Naughton’s readable book From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg, which provides a well-researched history of the internet, comparing our position today with the very early days of the printing revolution. We cannot know yet what will emerge from the internet revolution, but it does seem that many people are finding it harder than ever to read a long text; and at the same time “cultural units” are tending to get smaller and smaller – tracks instead of albums, headlines and summaries instead of full reports, news feeds instead of newspapers.

So, going back to Virginia Woolf’s theme of “adapting writing to the body”, it seems the internet has created new impetus for writers to adapt their writing to the reader’s needs. In my view, it also provides writers with new forms that might suit their needs. To borrow Naughton’s words, we are now free to combine text (and other forms) in new and surprising ways. The internet is a huge distraction, as author Will Self and others have highlighted recently, but it’s also an unprecedented opportunity for writers.